4 Silent Struggles Poultry Farmers Go Through, and How to Overcome Them.

Some years back when I moved to a new location to start my poultry farm. Literally, I was the first person within that vicinity to start a poultry farm, but as time goes on, one or two people started venturing into the poultry business.

And were becoming increasingly interested in poultry farming due to the progress they saw and the manner and ways I was running the farm.

But underneath, just like any other successful business lies real hard work struggles and losses that have been experienced over the years.

Sadly enough hardly a day goes by without hearing a fellow farmer, particularly a poultry farmer is about to stop or has given up poultry farming.

This knowledge base article is going to elaborate on some of these very important struggles farmers, particularly poultry farmers go through and how to identify and overcome these struggles in order to make gains:

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1. Getting Market For Your Poultry Birds

Poultry farming is a very lucrative and attractive business if done properly, that is why a lot of people venture into it in droves.

Hardly every day passes by without newcomers joining the poultry sector, unfortunately, most of these people don’t have a laid down plan to market their products.

So they fall into trouble along the line some years back a friend of mine who visited our farm and was fascinated by what he saw and he decided to go into farming too.

Which was good and fine one thing he forgot to do was to make extensive research, particularly about how he would market his product at the end of the day.

He bought the chickens, and he was able to manage and reared them properly to maturity, but he had one major problem selling them.

No festivity in sight and he couldn’t reach people that could buy them irrespective of festivity or not.

And he has to keep on feeding them for as long as he is still looking for buyers. As a result, he became discouraged and almost quit but we have to encourage him and told him what today next time.

Poultry farming especially broiler farming is a business you start from the end, meaning you have to secure your market before you start producing them.

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2. Death and Diseases are a Serious Problem to Poultry Farmers
   

Death and disease are common among poultry farmers especially newbies i.e. newcomers into the sector.

This is a result of proper or inadequate education and knowledge about poultry farming. A lot of farmers lack the nitty-gritty of poultry farming from brooding to maturity.

They rear the chicken the way they understand it, rather than seeking knowledge from experienced farmers, and also following the proper way of raising birds.

For instance, some months ago a neighbor told me of how he bought some sets of day-old turkeys and he immediately allows them to roam about without proper care i.e brooding process, that shouldn’t be.

Day-old birds are supposed to be under certain regulated temperatures to stay alive anything less than that, might lead to their death. i.e. very low temperature below 30⁰C. Unfortunately, he lost all the birds to very low temperatures and diseases.

In other words, he incurs a high mortality rate and financial losses which can be avoided.

A lot of poultry farmers go through this trauma and lose silently and some even gave up farming altogether before you even realize what is happening.

There is a need for proper education, training, and retraining of poultry farmers particularly new farmers so that these losses can be reduced to the barest minimum.

A sick bird

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3. Lack of Funds A Major Financial Crisis for Poultry Farmers
   

Lack of funds not just in the farming sector in all spears of life or business if you lack funds definitely you would struggle to survive in business.

Poultry farming is not an exception, so many poultry farmers would go into farming without adequate or proper planning.

For instance, if you are stocking say 200 birds normally 200 hundred birds should consume between 27kg to 35 kg of feeds per day as they approach table size or point of lay in terms of layers.

Unfortunately most farmers are not prepared for this they just stock in birds without adequate provision for their feed and then along the line they starts struggling with feeding.

This might lead to hunger stress subsequently death, and serious losses of birds. Because they would be under fed or their feed may lack adequate nutrition needed to keep them alive or grow properly.

So it is very important before you stock in any particular number of birds you should calculate adequately the quantity of feed that would be enough to feed them to maturity or point of lay in terms of laying hens, by so doing you don’t have to struggle or suffer in silence.

Securing a good financial deal is crucial to your success

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4. Security and Theft

Adequate security of farms can never be over-emphasized. There are different ways in which you can protect your farm from intruders or prevent thieves from gaining access into your farms. i.e

• By hiring the services of security personnel.
• Providing proper and adequate fencing round the farm.
• Have certain species of guard dogs protect your birds and sound alarm in case of any intruder trying to gain access to the farm.
• Sensitizing and educating your farm workers on the need to be proactive in fishing out or recognizing suspecting customers.

Proper stock and record-keeping too would help in checking and reducing wastes and theft to some extent on your farm.

Location of farms also matters for instance in certain areas or countries such as northern Nigeria where you have serious security challenges of banditry, cattle rustling, etc.

The location of your farm matters a lot, you cannot just go and established your farm in areas that are prone to cattle rustlers and banditry.

It is very risky they can just appear one day with heavy arms and cart away with all your animal which is very terrible and sad.

It is therefore very important when establishing your farm, look for an area that is well secured and not too far away from human settlement, especially in regions that are prone to serious security challenges.

This is to avoid loses and damages to your property. When establishing your farm, please don’t rush take your time to look for a well-secured location, with a good road network to bring out your goods not too far from the market or processing area.

So that you don’t have to struggle and go through unnecessary hardship a lot of poultr yfarmers go through.

Having a guard dog is a sure way of keeping petty thieves at bay

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Conclusion

My advice is very simple, as we would always advice poultry farmers that are struggling to survive.

Don’t suffer in silence always voice out, contact experience and knowledgeable farmers, seek help whenever you are in trouble.

“Don’t bite more than you can chew” how do you intend to fund your farming enterprise. i.e is it through personal savings, family and friends, government intervention programmes or loans.

Most importantly starting small gaining experience over the years is a key factor to your overall success.

Having a clear definition of your source of funding from the onset will save you a lot of headache in the future.